Broadly Speaking As one of the lay consultants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, I found particularly interesting and thought-provoking your recent symposium discussing the statement “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” issued by the USCCB in April (“The Bishops & Religious Liberty,” June 15). There seems to be a commo (...)
Letters
The bishops & religious freedom, the common cup
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Frankly, I'm not surprised that Cardinal Dolan and others had more or less planned their current adversarial undertaking even before the HHS mandate came down. The USCCB's attitude during the Congressional hearings on the health care bill more than hinted at some kind of war or battle brewing under the surface. And then, of course, there was all that fuss about Notre Dame honoring an allegedly dishonorable President of the United States. It seems to me certain of our bishops, many of whom were close to the former administration of George Bush, have had it in for the current President from the moment he was elected, if not before, and now the laity is being urged to back up their partisan reaction as if we were all engaged in some monumental struggle to defend the Church against the assault by secularism on religion as religion. I don't buy it.